All right this is going to be a tough one to scratch out. I'm just about fried at this point. Today was our make-up day for the tournament and we fished it hard like we were in it. Not sure the conditions were drastically different. Rounding the tip we experienced fairly good swells 3-4' with that stiff west wind that honked at times but none the less steady at a minimum of 10-12. An all star crew made the trek outside. The Tastee man Capt Don Jr, Capt Don Sr (aka Miyaggi), T-bone, and Spromeister (aka the Silent Assasin) filled out the roster. We had every bait imagineable thanks to the handy work of Don Jr. He spent the week down in LBI last week before the tourney siening, castnetting and hooking the following: Spearing, Peanut bunker, Snappers, Garfish, Mullet. Fresh squid and terriaki strip bait completed the arsenal. We had the heavy sticks and had to drop some wieght to hold in that scratchy stuff. Donnie was the first to hook up on the first drop and boxed a real nice 5 lb 24" to start the day. You could imagine the rest of us were all jacked up asking what were you using? He holds his rig up and we all nearly peed our pants..... the dudes rigged up this thing that mirrored the spearing. Two pieces of silver ribbon tied to off to the eye of a 5/0. T-bone starts doing his best rendition of a cheerleader this thing looked like fringe from a Pom Pom. But I'll be damned if it didn't produce an excellent fish. There's a made scramble to the bait box ..... anything silver is pulled out. Snaps on this line, spearing on that, C-gars on others.... and the honk kept us honest. T-bone manages a quality CB about 18". a good knuckler with colors that made your Nicky Nwrk irredecent shirt from the 60's look like it was starched white. Nice fish for the box. Two down and plenty to go. But who had a clue? We were slogging it out second guessing our decision to be out here in the first place. A little more patience and mother nature finally cut us a break. The wind backed off enough to keep us at it and then all hell broke loose. The Assasin connects with a decent fluke. He puts this slippery criter on the transom tape to see if it going to be boxed and it had plans on the great escape. It flips in the air off the top of transom and with praying mantis like reflexes the Assisin drops a left hook to it mid air and it slams onto the deck. One for the Assasin, Fluke zero, you're going to the penalty box.
Miyaggi is patiently working his pumpkin stick with the terriaki special and he delivers on a flattie and shortly thereafter contributes another CB to the kiddy. I had my share of bumps and finally grind out a keep flat one. Meanwhile, T-bone is making up for lost time. He has not been out much this season but put the B' slappin on the fish today. He connected none stop on just about every drift. Both fluke and nice sea bass. Nice part of it was that there were few shorts today. The flat fish we were seeing were 3-3.5 lb class with 4 of the fish pushin 5 lbs. While this is going on Miyaggi is back at it on the pumpkin stick working on the seabass. He gets a snag on some nasty stuff, attempts to wrap his braid around the rear cleat. In the process, he bangs the tip and the SOB snaps off..... hate when that happens. It didn't phase him and continued to fish and connected with them without the tip. Way to keep at it Don sr.
Fishing was very good. The company was excellent. The lunch and beverages were awesome. I'm cooked so, keeping it short. Count for the day 11 keep flatties, 12 CB's
Here's a couple of pics.
Till next time.
